Trade Unions and Basic Income: Some Danish Experiences

Erik Christensen: “Trade Unions and Basic Income: Some Danish Experiences”, Society Register 2021 (polsk tidsskrift).

ABSTRACT: Theoretically, there are many good arguments that unions should support

a proposal on basic income. The main reason for the Danish trade unions resistance to

basic income reform is that it would go against the short-term interest of the unions

in organisational self-maintenance. Trade unions will lose power in relation to their

members with a basic income. Trade unions have control over individual members

by virtue of the collective agreement system and the labour law system. If you have a

basic income system, the individual worker will decide when he or she wants to leave

his workplace and strike. Suppose a single worker or a group of workers leave their

workplace because of dissatisfaction with the working condition. In that case, they

will be punished financially according to the rules of labour law rely on any support

from their trade union.

KEYWORDS: basic income, trade unions, Denmark, political struggles, labour market

policy